How can I get my pagination to recognize that it is on the first page?

Question

So my blog index page which displays all blog posts with pagination is at /my-blog/

Page two is at /my-blog/2

When I'm on any page but the first (or if i use /1 for the first page) paginate_links() is able to correctly add the right class to the current page's link to indicate we are on that page. However, when I am on the first page with the url being /my-blog/ it fails to do this correctly because the 'base' and 'format' settings are looking for '/my-blog/%_%' and '/my-blog/%#%'respectively.

I am not using a loop, instead using get_posts. How can I get the pagination to correctly indicate that the user is on the first page when the path does not include a number (/my-blog/)?

$paged = get_query_var('page');
$args = array('paged' => $paged);
$wp_query = new WP_Query($args);

echo paginate_links( array(
  'base' => '/my-blog/%_%',  
  'format' => '/my-blog/%#%',  
  'current' => max( 0, get_query_var('page') ),
  'total' => $wp_query->max_num_pages,
  'end_size' => 8,
  'mid_size' => 2));

Answer 1

You should change the first line of your code to:

$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;

So it sets $paged to 1, when your are on the first page.